


Me, Into Ashes

by songbird97



Category: Free!
Genre: Break Up, Established Relationship, Getting Back Together, M/M, the rating will vary but for now it's tame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-28
Updated: 2016-09-26
Packaged: 2018-08-10 03:23:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7828567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songbird97/pseuds/songbird97
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No one ever told him that loving someone might not be enough.</p><p>(In the second year of their relationship, Haruka and Rin face the harder realities of what it means to be together and of what it means to be apart, through lapses of separation, through mere moments of coming together, through learning how to be more than just the sum of their parts.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> AKA, the result of a 200-word drabble I came up with on a whim that grew into something much larger. Please don't kick me out of the fandom for this. //sweats//

He's going to drown here.

The surface of the water is only close enough to taunt him. If he reaches up, the tips of his fingers just barely breach the surface, but it’s enough for him to tell that the air up there is dense, anyway; hot to the point of burning, singeing the edges of any hope he has of escaping to a fate that might be less cruel. It’s enough that he has to yank his hand back under, as fast as he can through the fuzziness in his limbs.

And the water is clouded, also. He can see the very tips of his fingers when he reaches out but his can’t see his feet, and certainly can’t see what it is that’s anchoring him down by his ankles. Maybe it isn’t his ankles that are anchored at all. He has no way of knowing. He’s been too terrified to sink down and look.

(He’s been having this dream a lot lately.)

It’s freezing here, also. There isn’t any ice in sight, not even at the surface (—which glows a fiery red, consistently; always a hopelessly deep red—), but the water bites at him, slashes at his nerves, and makes him wonder what it ever felt like to know warmth.

Something yanks on him, on whatever’s keeping him underneath, and a familiar voice asks him if he ever even knew it at all.

And he sinks. The murk of the water fades into an eerie black and he could swear, for just a moment, if he looks down he can see something—something solid—reaching up to him, coaxing him further downwards

—and into his bedroom.

For five seconds, when Haruka wakes, he forgets how to breathe. Pain comes with it, finally, like his dream has come into reality and his lungs truly have been filled with water. But the moments pass and his memory floods in along with the air, and he doesn’t jolt when his lungs finally fill but his heart is pounding, and he feels just as awake as he always does, after these dreams.

He’s sweating, heavily, and his chest feels like it’s been sat on, but the air around him is mercifully cool and chills the parts of his skin that have gone damp—he takes a breath, releases it. Becoming aware of his breathing pattern has helped in the past and it helps now, and only after he falls into a rhythm does his pulse slow back down.

_One week._

Slowly, and without looking, he extends an arm, just hovering between the comforter and the sheets. Almost immediately his knuckles brush up against the warm knots of a spine, curled underneath bare skin, and despite himself, his chest loosens up a bit.

Somehow, this still comforts him.

Rin might have been asleep when Haruka had woken up but he shifts now, rolling drearily onto his back. The bed dips with it, causing Haruka to tip forward with the pull, and Rin takes in a deep, waking breath, the blanket over his chest sinking with the release.

Relaxed like this, with his hair swept away from his face and eyelashes against his cheeks, tired confusion tugging at his mouth, Rin looks so beautiful. At the beginning, when things were new and sweet and exciting, Haruka’s heart would have lurched out of his chest.

Rin rolls his head around, hair sticking up in every direction.

It’s one week before he leaves again.

“Haru,” he murmurs, eyes still closed, voice rough from disuse. Feeling awkward, Haruka retracts his hand quickly. “What’s wrong?”

It’s painful in the way that Rin doesn’t know how loaded that question is. Haruka wraps his arms around himself and pulls his knees up high, and Rin's eyes don't open.

“Nothing,” he says. “Go back to sleep.”

There’s a grunt, and the rustling sound that comes above sheets. “You’re a bad liar,” Rin whispers, blindly reaching for Haruka. His hand slaps against the mattress a few times before he asks, “Where are you?”

Haruka nudges his knee against Rin’s open palm. It’s warm. “Here.”

“C’mere.”

Haruka doesn’t entirely know if that’s a good idea, but he obliges, allowing himself to be coaxed close enough until he’s pressed against Rin’s side and can hook a knee over Rin’s. And Rin turns to him a little more fully, nudges his nose against Haruka’s forehead.

“Bad dream?”

Haruka frowns. He doesn’t really know what it was. Hasn’t known since they started. “Not really.”

Rin hooks an arm over Haruka’s waist, and with the added pressure the tension starts to bleed out of him. And as much as he knows he shouldn’t, as much as he knows he should pay attention to the perpetual thrum of pain whirring deep in his chest, it’s so easy to forget about it here. Rin is, blissfully and unintentionally, dangerous like that.

Because there’s something within him now that he doesn’t think it’s okay to ignore.

Rin’s fingers trip clumsily along the length of Haruka’s back; his exhaustion is showing through even in that. Then they slip underneath Haruka’s sleep shirt and draw patterns into the skin of the small of his back. They feel a little like the shape of hearts, but Haruka can’t be sure.

“It wasn’t a good dream,” Rin mumbles, knowingly. “You’re sweating like hell.”

Haruka sighs, curling a hand around Rin’s shirt and tugging. He doesn’t need to talk; not about this, or about anything. Not right now. He just needs Rin close.

“Go to sleep,” he says, ducking so that he can press the words to Rin’s jaw.

As expected, Rin softens, his hands falling relaxed along Haruka’s body. He nods, drowsily, cutely. And as he starts to nod off completely again, Haruka brushes his hair back from his forehead, and says, “I love you.”

Rin’s shoulders stiffen, and his eyes flutter open. There’s just as much confusion in his expression as there is adoration, and Haruka—much like any other time he’s said those words—feels very much like stepping out of his skin for a minute.

(But he’s been worried, as of late, about not feeling this way anymore. Sometimes—a kind of dreadful sometimes that can easily be replaced with _more often than not_ —he has to remind himself.)

“Love you, too,” Rin says, blinking heavily, unintentionally pressing something heavy into Haruka’s chest.

Hoping that it doesn't feel like he's doing it out of obligation, Haruka reaches back to take one of Rin’s hands and holds it in his own. He rubs gentle circles into the palm, strokes his fingers up the back of it—and when he looks up to check if Rin’s still watching him, he’s fallen asleep, again, already. Haruka wonders if he’ll even remember this conversation in the morning.

But Rin’s breathing is even, and his skin is warm and solid. And Haruka finds he doesn’t care too much about the morning. Rin is still here. Rin still loves him.

And Rin is leaving again, in a week.

Haruka closes his eyes.

He’ll have to get it over with by then.

 

 

In the morning, he gets ready for work while Rin is still asleep. He should wake Rin up for his morning run, probably, and he knows it—but there are conversations that could come from that, and Rin looks peaceful where he is, chest rising and falling, mouth and eyes softened. So in the end, Haruka lets him be.

Rin could use a break day, anyway. He works too hard, Haruka thinks, and has always thought, but Rin’s ferocity can never really be wholly contained. He’s got too much of it, so if he tried to hold it in, he’d probably burst at the seams.

It’s isn’t until Haruka’s at the door, ready to leave the apartment that he remembers not waking Rin up means he’ll have to walk to work alone. Which he’s fine with, but it’s the cause-and-effect that saps him, makes him wonder if Rin will wake up later and think that Haruka just didn’t want to walk with him. The thought of it weighs down on his chest, but the clock betrays him of the time he’d need for Rin to get ready, so he mutes his mind as best as he can, and he leaves.

The walk takes him fifteen minutes—and it isn’t so much lonely as it is quiet. Because even on the days they don’t talk, Rin’s presence is loud enough to fill any silence that could come between them, particularly in the mornings, when he has enough energy to run in the first place. For now, though, it’s a welcome change. He needs the space to think things over.

It's not like he has a lot of time to prepare, after all, if he's going to break up with Rin before he leaves. The thought of it alone gets his hands shaking.

“You’re late,” Sousuke says, when Haruka actually arrives. The argument’s on the tip of his tongue, as it always is when it comes to Sousuke, but the clock hanging tauntingly above them proves him correct; he is late, if only by five minutes.

He sheds his jacket, hangs it up with the others on the rack opposite the line of stovetops, and attempts to keep his gaze even.

“I didn’t think you wouldn’t be able to handle things without me for five minutes,” he asks; his chef’s coat is a little twisted around the buttons, so he straightens it. Behind him, Sousuke scoffs. “I guess my expectations were too high.”

“Yeah, alright,” Sousuke mutters, instead of rising to the fight. “I put Kazaya on bussing yesterday, after you left.”

“What was it this time?”

“He mixed up two orders, then mixed up another two orders, then spilled a jug of water onto a customer.” He says it as he watches Haruka pull down one of the reservation notes from the window, arms crossed over his chest, eyebrows drawn down. “We really should let him go. He slows the kitchen down.”

“He's better than a new hire would be,” Haruka says. “Unless you want to deal with the interview process again.”

Sousuke's face twists unpleasantly. “Fine, he isn't that bad.” He pauses to give Haruka a once-over, then leans away from the counter. “You look like hell, by the way.”

Something inside of Haruka’s chest stiffens up. He remembers dark waters and the cold, deep in his bones. “I didn't sleep well.”

Sousuke makes a noise. “Not the good kind of losing sleep, I guess,” he says, and Haruka can hardly contain the humorless laughter that comes out through his nose.

“Wouldn't be any of your business if it was.”

“Right,” he says, the tone of his voice tipping upwards and he continues, “Hey. Did you and Rin have a fight?”

Haruka pauses, turns to fully look at Sousuke again; he’s grateful he doesn’t drop the pan he’s holding. “What?” he asks, in time to watch Sousuke’s face draw downwards.

In moments like this, Haruka can completely understand why Sousuke and Rin get along so well—how they click so effortlessly. Because although he lacks a lot of the hot intensity Rin carries with him daily, Sousuke is severe in a lot of ways. Like now, in the way he stares Haruka down with a look that’s a full step past calculating.

And it’s worse that he doesn’t say anything, because it means he knows Haruka heard him. And he has; so he sets the pan down on the stove and steps away from it a bit, letting the rushed hustle of the chefs cut through the quiet and make it less—heavy. Dense. He doesn’t know for sure, but it is too much of something. And a burst of hilarity hits him when he thinks of Sousuke’s question, because he doesn’t think a fight with Rin could ever make him feel like this. He’s fought with Rin before; they’ve had petty, little arguments about things like who gets the window seat during plane rides and they’ve had explosive fights, like the one in the locker room during their last year of high school and the one after Haruka quit competitive swimming.

But those were all resolved. They got through the arguments because they actually meant they were releasing some of what they were keeping boxed in, but this—

(This reminds him too much of the feeling he had when Rin first came back from Australia permanently, of the feeling that sunk into his chest when he realized the shadowed eyes under the peak of a snapback weren’t the same as the ones his heart soared for when he was young, of the feeling that stayed with him until he had somehow, finally, done something right.)

—there aren’t any arguments where they are now. He wishes there were.

(He wishes he knew what the right thing to do was, now.)

“No,” he says, when he’s sure his voice is strong enough to use. His head hurts; maybe it’s too early to be thinking about this. “We didn’t have a fight.”

Sousuke’s expression reads heavily like he isn’t buying that, but either he decides to ignore it or his logic weighs in more heavily than his instincts do, because he nods. “Just wondering.”

He turns away and leaves after that, and Haruka kind of wants to ask him to come back and explain why he asked in the first place. Sousuke usually isn’t so perceptive of what Haruka’s feeling, even with as friendly as they’ve gotten, so he wonders if Rin’s been acting differently when they’re not together. Or worse, if Haruka just hasn’t noticed.

But Sousuke’s around the corner and gone before he can find the right words to ask. And he thinks, somewhat numbly, that this whole thing might not go as smoothly as he had hoped.

Though, nothing of this past year and a half has been smooth; every time Rin leaves Haruka’s taken back to that first day he’d officially quit competitive swimming, to the disappointment in the faces of his team, as if quitting had wholly been a choice he’d made—to the pain in Rin’s eyes, the pretend-okay smile that Haruka wants to approach and shake away as much as he wants to hide from. It’s accusing in a way Haruka knows Rin doesn’t mean to be, but knowing that doesn’t make it any less painful.

Because, and only because, Rin leaves without him now. Which is something Haruka knew would happen, and has forced himself to get used to; enough so that being around Rin now is what has started to feel strange. So then, which would have been worse, in the long run? To feel like he does now, or to have suffered in silence by Rin’s side?

His hands are shaking again, so he presses them against the counter to still them, tells himself that this isn’t the time to be thinking this over. As much as he knows he needs to be doing that.

Back into his body, he picks up the pan he’d abandoned and presses himself into his work. And he tries, desperately, not to think about how often it’s been like this recently.

The day passes, not quickly but with a physical ease, and he’s back up the steps of the apartment complex by five o’clock. The metal is rough against his heels, and—maybe he’s moving a little too fast. But he’s going to reach the door of their apartment eventually anyway, so he decides against caring.

When he’s inside, he’s met with quiet. Rin hasn’t bothered to turn the lights on in the living room, apparently, or maybe he’s shut them off. Whatever he’s done, the only light on in the home comes from the light in the kitchen, and the tiny window around the corner in the hallway. Haruka thinks the place looks better when it’s dim, anyway; the walls are painted a deep brown and had been when they’d moved in, so when the lights are all on it looks too much like a failed attempt to make the place seem bright.

The television is on but is on silent, playing some oceanic documentary that Rin probably only had on earlier for background noise; and Haruka doesn’t have to wonder for long where Rin is because he comes around the corner at the sound of the door swinging shut, loose sweatpants around his waist and his hair in a ponytail. A high one this time, to accommodate for the extra length he’s let his hair gain over the past few months.

It isn’t possible for Rin to not look good, but this definitely ranks high among Haruka’s favorite ways for him to look. He leans against the wall with his shoulder, hooks one ankle around the other, and smiles in a way that takes Haruka’s words away from him before he can even think them up.

“You didn’t wake me up this morning,” Rin says, which triggers the memory of walking alone to work, of thinking what he’d been thinking, and Haruka tastes something bitter and the fluttery feeling in his chest dissipates. “I lazed around all day thanks to you.”

But he’s still smiling, so Haruka can’t feel defensive even if he’d wanted to. “You deserve it. You work yourself too hard.”

He says it as he sheds his jacket and his shoes, and in that time Rin comes closer to him.

“I hardly work myself enough,” he argues. “And I’m going back soon, so I can’t really afford cheat days … you’ve got something on your cheek.”

Haruka frowns, for two reasons now. Rin looks smug as he lifts a hand to his cheek, rubbing away at the skin with his knuckle—

“Other side,” Rin laughs, and reaches up to do away with whatever it is himself. His thumb is soft against Haruka’s skin, and as he rubs, something flakes away. “What even is this? Flour?”

“Sorry for not waking you up,” Haruka says, which isn’t really an answer to Rin’s question but it gets his attention anyway. “You looked tired.” Peaceful, too. And pretty. But those are things that Rin always looks like when he’s asleep, so Haruka doesn’t think they’re important enough to mention.

Rin’s smile turns sheepish. “It’s fine,” he says, and his hand falls from Haruka’s face. “I didn’t visit you at the restaurant today, so I guess we’re even.”

“Yeah,” Haruka says, clutching the paper bag in his hands a little bit tighter. “I brought steak home for dinner.”

Rin lifts an eyebrow; Haruka can't decide if he looks suspicious or impressed. “What kind?”

“Filet,” Haruka says, and kisses Rin on the cheek as he steps around him, more out of habit than anything else.

“Jeez.” Rin's eyes follow him away. “What's the bad news?”

Haruka foregoes a response in favor of unpacking the meat and getting to work on cooking it, only half because he's starving. Rin looks too nice for him to think about any kind of bad news he might have, really. It makes his chest hurt.

Behind him, the tips of Rin's fingers come to the small of his back. He thinks Rin might kiss the back of his shoulder, too, but any chance he has of feeling it is outweighed by the simple pressure of Rin’s forehead digging into his shoulder blade. He’s going to have to move, eventually, if Haruka’s going to successfully make dinner, but he’s warm, and sweeps something sweet into Haruka’s skin.

“I missed you today,” he says, which could mean a lot of things. He doesn’t say it low enough to be suggestive, nor lilting enough to be playful, so Haruka frowns.

“You could have come seen me in the restaurant.”

“Yeah, I know, but,” Rin starts, stops. His hand is still at Haruka's back, but he's pressed his cheek into Haruka’s hair. “Hm, never mind.”

And Haruka feels cold when Rin pulls away, the sweet feeling falling through and leaving behind something hollow, and he hates that he can’t just have one night where he isn’t feeling like this. Behind him, Rin’s footsteps retreat around the corner and back into the living room.

He finishes dinner quickly, because Rin has always liked his meat rare enough that it might as well be screaming—and being with him has meant that Haru’s never really known much meat any other way, so their filets bleed when they cut into them. They eat in the living room, and their feet tangle, and Haruka doesn’t know if he should be concerned or relieved that touching Rin is still something that’s easy for him.

This must be what he’s supposed to do, isn’t it? Because Rin has to be noticing, too, that this kind of partial, conditional happiness isn’t what either of them wanted, going into this. That it’s only when they’re apart that they can ever pretend like they’re wholly together.

But in the end, Haruka doesn’t know if Rin really feels that way. Something crucial has broken in their relationship, and this Haruka knows—has known for months now but has certainly known since this visit, since Rin stepped off of his plane and gave Haruka the kind of smile that’s only ever come before when paired with something like fear or insecurity—and thinks that if Rin doesn’t feel it, it might very well be that Haruka’s that crucial something.

Because two years before this, Rin kisses him under a curtain of rain. Thinking back on it now, on how easy things were, on how his only concern at the time was getting Rin to kiss him harder and hold him tighter; it all seems so far away. Like a life he remembers but somehow didn't live himself. Rin kissed him that day, not on any day that was special for them but on a day that Rin's hair caught water in perfect droplets and reflected stars in his smile. A day like any other day Haruka's known him. And they had kissed and it had only happened, and then Rin was taking his hand and it was none of what Haruka was ever told it could be, because being with Rin had always been working with the grain, feeling a current around his ankles tugging him under and refusing to fight it. And Rin had blushed but had not looked unsure, which might have come with words if either of them had chosen that path, and now, Haruka can only think that might have been better.

Maybe if they'd been better with that kind of thing, maybe if either of them had been brave enough to put their words in front of their mouths before using them, then they wouldn't have stumbled their way into what became the mess of the moments that carry them along today. 

If they'd slowed down, if they'd only taken their time instead of stupidly rushing into it all, could they have been better?

He's stopped hearing the television long ago, has stopped feeling the steady pressure of Rin's ankle against his own. Haruka looks over at Rin, if nothing else then because he can, and the result of the damage to his heart is the smallest voice calling his name, saying  _You're right here. Right next to me._

_I feel so far from you._

His hand feels empty and heavy, all at once, and he wants to reach over and take Rin's hand but he can't help but feel like it's entirely selfish for him to want these things, when he also so desperately feels like he needs to end it all. 

In the dark, against shadows, Rin's face is made even more angular than normal; the dark edges slip away from the curved skin as he turns, though, and even through the haze of whatever it is Haruka's feeling he's aware of the obligatory panic that comes with being caught staring. 

But Rin smiles, in that way he always does. Severely, and with his eyebrows drawn down, like he's so sure of something—something Haruka certainly doesn't know, or maybe Rin's just sure of everything in a way Haruka could never be—and Haruka wants to kiss him equally as much as he wants to scramble off of the couch and hide somewhere that he won't feel guilt crush into his lungs. The last thing he'd ever want to do is take that smile away.

He just doesn't know how he's going to keep it there, either.

"What?" Rin asks, probably because Haruka hasn't stopped staring, like he maybe should.

"Nothing," Haruka says. "I like looking at you."

Rin's smile turns mischievous. "What a charmer," he teases, toes pressing into Haruka's ankle. "You've been so nice to me today."

"Have I?" There's irony behind that, so Haruka keeps his voice low.

"Yeah. Real nice. What gives?"

"Nothing. I'm always nice."

"You are literally never nice."

"That's not—"

"You're usually not  _this_ nice," Rin says, smile wide, but not as bright as Haruka would like to see it. "Letting me sleep in, bringing home steak, complimenting me. What do you want, hm? Maybe ..." And the mischief turns into something else, although it fades quickly. There's a flush high on his cheeks. "Nah, it can't be sex. You're mean when you want sex."

Haruka narrows his eyes and flushes, too. "No, I'm not."

Rin gives him an absolutely unconvinced look, one eyebrow tipping upwards, towards his hairline. It reads heavily like  _you're a dirty liar_ , and Haruka's capable of admitting that he might not be the nicest when he knows what he wants, but Rin's never complained before. Or at least not to a point of concern.

"Hey," Rin says, expression falling into something more solemn. "I'm serious. What's wrong?"

He scoots a little closer on the couch, palms against the cushions. Haruka says nothing; although he could. He could tell Rin exactly what's wrong, and get this all over ahead of time, days before Rin's supposed to leave again. But something about telling Rin right now doesn't feel right, and he doesn't think he could do it right now even if he wanted; not when Rin's eyes are the kind of concerned that comes only from love. Though he doesn't like the sound of Rin taking a breath in, like he's about to take a chance on something, and wonders if maybe he should find  _something_ to say, if for nothing else then just to stop him from wherever he's trying to take this.

But he hesitates too long, and so Rin's voice is quiet when he asks, "Is it about the dream you had last night?"

Haruka tenses; he has tipped his eyes away, focusing very hard on the strap of Rin's tank top that's decided to come loose, but he still thinks he could count the creases of concern in Rin's forehead, just from memory. 

Rin ducks down, forcing himself into Haruka's line of sight. His mouth is drawn down, his eyes are sad, and whatever hair that's come loose from the hair tie falls in front of them. "It was a bad one, huh?" 

He starts to reach for Haruka, looking like he's aiming for the side of his face. And Haruka quietly, ungracefully blurts, "Only because you weren't there."

Rin stops, hand paused rather awkwardly mid-air, and then he lets it fall. There's a shocked kind of look on his face, and the way Haruka's heart rate skyrockets is anything but pleasant.

"I didn't mean—"

"I know," Rin says, voice a little strained. Haruka closes his mouth and wishes he hadn't opened it at all. "I know you didn't. Sorry."

Pulling his legs up onto the couch to cross them, Haruka can't think of a single thing Rin should be apologizing for. He feels like he should say something to that degree, but Rin reaches out and takes his hand before he can think up adequate enough words to do so.

"I'm here," Rin says, eyes on their hands. Then he pushes his fingers through the spaces between Haruka's, and pulls the pair of them into his lap. He looks hesitant to say, "Even when I'm not."

What comes to Haruka is the entirely childish instinct to cover his ears with his palms; and childish it would be, as well as dramatic, because words like this—words that Rin has always used, in between lapses of romance and reassurance whenever Haruka's felt like he's truly been falling behind—shouldn't have so much of an effect on him. Couples have talked like this, don't they? Normal ones—ones that don't have the same kinds of things to worry about like Rin and Haruka do, so if things like this are supposed to be normal, why do they leave him feeling so empty?

Shouldn't Rin—with his being here, now, in particular—be enough for him?

And, God. Does Rin feel the same way he does?

"I'm sorry," Rin is saying, pressing through his blockage of thought, "I don't tell you that as much as I should."

This rush of clarity always presents itself; that he's thinking too much about his actions, and what he should do and where this situation is taking them, and that he's not thinking enough about how he's feeling. How Rin's feeling. How he's making Rin feel—or if he's making Rin feel anything, at all, anymore. He doesn't know what option terrifies him more.

He inhales for three seconds, releases it for five. "You shouldn't have to tell me."

Rin is quiet, the smile from earlier gone without a trace. "Maybe not."

Haruka tries to imagine their relationship now without the strange feeling, of going back to those first couple of months they were together when they were  _together_. No oceans separating them, no training that one of them had to escape to while the other had to stay behind. Being with Rin had felt so vibrant then, and he was pretty sure Rin felt the same about him.

But Rin looks so sad now, all the time. Haruka wants Rin, helplessly, addictively; but not like this, when the space between them feels so empty. And Rin's happiness should come before it all for him, shouldn't it?

And it does, and so when Rin pulls his their hands apart, Haruka does nothing to protest.

"I'll go clean up from dinner," Rin says, and then he's off of the couch and gone. Haruka lifts his hands to the sides of his face, and feels exhaustion in his head rather than his body.

 

He says it to himself every day, that he'll do it that night. That he'll sit Rin down and have that honest conversation he's been meaning to have, and he won't let it dissolve (explode) into a fight and won't let himself cry. He hopes, miserably, that Rin doesn't cry. 

But as much as he thinks it, as many times as he catches Rin on the couch and feels dread sink into his stomach (along with a very strong feeling of  _now; what time is better than now?_ ), he can't bring himself to say anything. Not only because he doesn't know where he would start but because the idea of it all strangles him. Breaking up with Rin; and then subsequently either making Rin feel heartbroken or relieved. Either way, he feels sick.

On the last day, the night before Rin is supposed to leave, they have dinner at Sousuke and Gou's apartment. It takes some of the tension out of the air, which is nice, but he has a feeling of anxiousness stilled inside of him the whole time. He can barely appreciate Gou's food, which is always very good, and which Rin groans over because it reminds him heavily of their mother's cooking and that he hasn't gone home to see her in months. Haruka tells him without thinking that they should go to Iwatobi the next time that Rin's home, and Rin's smile is too hopeful for him to look at for very long.

At some point Sousuke kisses Gou and Rin gags, at another Gou pecks Haruka on the cheek and Sousuke pretends to get mad. The night's events are shuffled in his mind, so much so that all he can do is think that it was _good_ , and be grateful that it was. They've needed something good, probably during this entire visit; or at least at any point after the inevitable high that always comes to them when they see each other at the gate of the airport. Rin seems to hold him tighter, every time. 

Gou forces the leftovers upon them (upon Haruka, really, since he's going to be the only one around to eat it, which is a thought that numbs him more than anything else and he's grateful, anyway, knowing that he won't have the energy to cook for himself for the first few days; and though her tonkatsu isn't mackerel, it's miles ahead of cup noodles), and so Haruka slides them into their fridge at home with care, before he even bothers to take his jacket off. Rin stands by him as he does it, shifting around layers of vegetables and packaged mackerel to make room for the large container, and Haruka only notices after he's leaned up out of the fridge and catches Rin's shoulders shaking that he's been laughing a little.

"What?"

Rin's smirk is teasing, and only that. It's so nice to see it without even a trace of sadness that Haruka nearly melts through the floor. "I'm just wondering how you ever survive off of only mackerel when I'm gone."

"I eat other things," says Haruka gravely, shutting the door and closing them off to the cool air.

"I'm supposed to believe that?"

"I do. Every now and then." He'll get sick if he only eats mackerel. It's happened before, years ago, and Haruka wonders if he's ever told Rin that story. Or if maybe Makoto has.

"Honestly," Rin sighs, hands coming to Haruka's waist. "You're way too damn thin."

"I work out."

"Okay, but you have to eat right, too," Rin says; there's a line between his eyebrows that Haruka wants to kiss away. "You can't just work your muscles without giving them any nutrients."

It's this sort of feeling, the carefree, playful type that Haruka's missed so much. He takes Rin by the forearms and says, "You're fussing."

"The fuck? I'm not  _fussing_."

Haruka presses his lips together to keep the smile in. "My muscles are fine, Kou."

Even Rin can't help the laugh at that, even if it is mixed in with a scoff. He gives one of Haruka's hips a shove, sending him back a couple steps, and mutters around a crooked smile. "You jerk."

Haruka reaches out, tangles a few of his fingers in the front of Rin's shirt. "Don't make fun of my training regimen just because yours is crazy."

"I'd rather it be crazy than nonexistent."

"I swim almost every day."

"And yet you haven't raced me a single time," Rin murmurs, smile falling into something a little more tender. "Not once this visit."

Haruka doesn't know if Rin means for it to sound like bait, but that's what it feels like; like an invitation to a promise of some kind, one that Haruka doesn't know if he's ready to give. But the smile on Rin's face is so easy, so wide—and Haruka wonders if it would really be so bad, to give Rin this one thing. 

He takes a step closer. "Next time," he says, voice weak in his throat.

(And he wonders, subsequently, if it would be so bad to continue to give Rin all of this.)

"Shit, Haru," Rin says, coming close enough to bump their noses together. And this he does, gently, mouth close enough to Haruka's to take his breath right out of him. "You've been thinking too much."

It's an opportunity for him to say something dreadfully corny, like  _Make me stop thinking, then,_ or  _What are you gonna do about it?_ But things like that have always been Rin's forte much more than his, so he settles for pressing his forehead against Rin's instead, and shedding off his jacket. Rin's eyes follow it, all the way to where he drapes it over the kitchen counter, and for a reason he can't place, Haruka kind of wishes Rin hadn't looked away.

"I want to take a shower," he announces, and Rin's eyes go suspicious.

"In what world would you want a shower and not a bath?"

Haruka blinks, pulling the blankest expression he can muster. "It'd be difficult to fit both of us into the bath."

Rin's eyes fall half-shut. "Oh."

"But if you want to try and fit into the bath with me—"

"Don't even finish that sentence, you weirdo."

Showers are nice, though, Haruka thinks, even if they aren't as nice as baths, as Rin's hair slips through his fingers, dragging suds against skin. Rin's shampoo smells like cherries and something vaguely earthy, like wood or vanilla, and it almost makes Haruka want to go out and buy something that smells this nice for himself, in place of the dulled one he owns, which really only ever reminds him of mist. Rin doesn't complain, though; in fact he seems to enjoy it, because he takes his time washing Haruka's hair clean, pushing it all back from his forehead to keep the soap out of his eyes.

Besides, water is a good look on Rin. The spray of it lands on him in ways that can't be accomplished in a bathtub or a pool, and leave marks the way Haruka imagines his hands to when he touches him. 

This, Haruka recognizes; the physical attraction, the desire to be close ... an area where it's so easy to forget about other things. Things that probably matter more, in the long run. But he mutes them even here, with a press of his fingertips to the lower points of Rin's stomach, tracing over hipbones and circling around his navel—Rin's hands fall to his shoulders and then lower, and one of them grunts against the steam.

It's just. It's _nice_ to touch Rin, without having to worry about any barriers between them, knowing that they're both past the point of embarrassed flushes and stares, but something inside of Haruka aches for this kind of closeness without it being physical. The closeness he knows he once had, and doesn't know where he lost it.

Rin's mouth comes to press against his cheek, and then he's sighing. "Haru. You're doing it again."

But Rin's hands are low on his waist and their chests are kind of pressed together, so it takes Haruka's mind a moment or two to catch up. "What?"

"Thinking too hard," Rin says, against his jaw now. "I can almost hear you over here."

But Rin's eyes, or what Haruka can see of them, reflect a heavier question: the  _What's wrong?_ that he's been prying at Haruka with these past three weeks, used so many times that it's been worn raw. Haruka understands why he doesn't want to use it again now.

"Sorry," he says, and slots himself against the wall of a shower, where it arcs into a corner. Rin slips away from him a bit, but his hands stay where they are. Haruka moves his own, and focuses very hard on them, on mapping out the rough planes of Rin's chest. His skin is heated from the warmth of the water, which had been hot enough to singe them when they'd first gotten in, but Haruka's more interested in the area just above his sternum, where if he presses his fingers in deep enough, he swears he can feel the thrum of a heartbeat.

Rin's mouth is twisted downwards. "Don't be."

He doesn't say anything more than that. Haruka really doesn't want him to, anyway. They pull each other close, rinse each other off; and when the suds are gone and down the drain, Haruka tucks a hand behind Rin's neck and tugs him down.

The kiss is slow, and seems to take Rin by surprise because his hands are still for a moment. A moment that's almost too long, but they catch up fairly soon and then they're sliding to catch Haruka up around his shoulder blades, and Haruka's own fingers find Rin around his hips. The kiss turns into two, then three, and then Haruka's losing count and the water's going cold.

It isn't quite the fastest halt to making out they've ever faced—that would have to go to that one time Makoto walked in on them and then slammed his face into the door in his haste to escape—but it does slow them, and Rin ends up breaking the kiss with his hands at Haruka's shoulders and a nudge at the knee that's slipped between his own.

Outside of the sliding doors Rin tosses a towel over Haruka's hair and rubs it down. Rin's hair is still dripping, but it's long enough now to touch not only the base of his neck but his shoulders as well, so it drips off onto his skin rather than the floor. Still, Haruka reaches up and takes it into his hands, pulls it back into a makeshift ponytail and wrings it out, gently.

Rin glances down, no doubt at the sound of water hitting the floor in smacking drops, but all he offers in response is half a smile, and knocks one of his knees into Haruka's. 

"Messy," he scolds, and Haruka frowns. 

"Your hair's clean."

At some point Rin smirks and at another he leans forward, but the moments become a little blurred around where he presses his mouth to Haruka's neck.

"I don't have anything," Haruka says, because he's only just thought of it now. Rin hits a pressure point, and the feeling bolts through his chest and into his stomach.

"That's fine," says Rin, and it sounds like he's in no great rush at all. "I'm way too fucking tired to do it, anyway. Just wanna be close to you."

And that's the kind of need Haruka understands better than any other kind, so he nods, and holds tight. They leave their day clothes in heaps in the bathroom, and the only thing separating them in the next few moments is the time it takes to get to the bedroom and to get into their sleep shorts; then they come together again, and Haruka's kissed into the mattress, leaving his hands by his sides to sink into the sheets.

"I'm really," Rin breathes, mouth still against Haruka's, and he must not like the way he sounds because he pulls back marginally and tries again. "I'm really gonna miss you. I mean, I always do. But it's worse every time."

Haruka wants to ask whether he means leaving or coming back, but he doesn't. Other words are there, too, on the tip of his tongue, tickling the roof of his mouth and bitter in the back of his throat.

_We need to talk. Maybe this isn't healthy._

_Do you understand?_

_Do you feel the same?_

_Maybe we need a break._

Never in his life has he had a thoroughly working filter. Words are in his mind almost always, and a lot of the time they come into the air without his permission; it's something he's grown to not care about. He thinks that maybe that defect would come in handy here, for better or for worse. 

It doesn't. For once in his life he can hold his tongue, and this he does.

Except, to say, "Kiss me."

The stars don't show through the sky outside, even though Haruka sees no clouds, but maybe the sky is just too black to tell. Here though, Rin kisses him, and the emptiness in his chest feels just as dark.

 

 

"If you forgot anything, let me know," Haruka says in the morning, fingers curled in the pockets of his jacket. His bites down on a yawn. "I'll mail it to you."

Rin smiles over his coffee. "Thanks."

"Sure."

The sun is barely out, just kind of tingeing the sky with pinks and light blues, near the horizon where it isn't fading into navy. They've been up for two hours now, which means it's been two hours since Rin had offered to leave alone, which means it's been two hours since Haruka refused, which means it's been two more hours that he's been a horrible coward.

He's out of time, now. Isn't he?

"I'll call you when I land," Rin says, backpack looking heavy on his shoulders and suitcase by his side. Haruka wants to sweep them away, along with the rest of the world.

"Okay."

"You'll answer, yeah?"

"If I hear it ringing. But I don't have to work today."

Rin's mouth curls a little more. "So you really don't have an excuse."

"Not really," Haruka admits, not wanting to force a smile, so he doesn't.

A laugh comes out of Rin's nose, and then the intercom calls for his flight. A beat of panic, an obligatory one, races through Haruka's chest like a bolt of lightning, raises up in his throat like a scream.

"I'll miss you," he says, finally, which is more of a scream than he thinks he could ever manage.  _I miss you now, already. I'm sorry.  
_

"You too." Rin pulls him into a hug, holding him tightly around his shoulders, and Haruka holds back just as tight.

 _Don't go_ , Haruka thinks, and it's what he always thinks. And like always, he stays quiet.

"I'll see you soon," Rin promises, squeezing Haruka tight for a wonderful, horrible second before he lets go. Then he takes one step backwards, curls his hand around the handle of his suitcase, and walks towards the gate of his flight.

Haruka watches him go, feeling hope and guilt and sadness, so much of it, and bites down on the side of his cheek to keep them all at bay, boxed away where they should be. 

He stares at the gate even after Rin's passed it, and keeps staring even after the plane's taken off. He stares until people start staring at him, and then he leaves, thinking that if he wasn't out of time before, he certainly is now.

 _I love him_ , he thinks, feels, believes. At the very least, he knows that this is still true.  _I love him_.

It leaves him wondering when that stopped being enough.


	2. Chapter Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I probably should have warned you all ahead of time ... but since I didn't, I'll do it now: I can't promise anything in regards to how fast updates are going to come. Trust that I love this idea and am always working on it! Because I am. However, my muse can be fickle and schoolwork comes first, so I certainly won't promise speed. What I can promise, though, is that chapters will be long, and you will never read anything from me that I haven't thought through and worked hard on. Little to nothing in this fic will be filler; I promise. That said, this chapter is still building up to the more exciting/rougher parts, so in that sense, time will move a little faster here, and there will be more breaks between scenes and shorter scenes in general. Please bear with me!
> 
> With all of that out of the way, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to comment, either on here or in the tags on tumblr. I'm blown away, seriously. Your kind words saved me from my doubt about this fic and granted me so much confidence that I can't even say. I hope you continue to enjoy where the story is heading!

“I think they look fine,” Sousuke says, arms crossed over his chest, head cocked to one side—directly in his line of vision is a smoking pan of burned rolls, and directly next to him is Haruka. In the silence, behind them, the clock on the wall ticks like a taunt.

“There’s smoke coming off of them.”

“Point?”

“They’re inedible.”

“To you, sure. I’m sure a starving man would eat them just fine.”

Haruka blinks; he looks to Sousuke, and Sousuke looks back. “We’re baking for customers, not the homeless.”

Sousuke swats at a wisp of smoke, stone-faced. “Details.”

On any other given day Haruka might find amusement in all of this, in the smoke around them, in the devil-may-care attitude Sousuke constantly seems to possess—but tonight he slips on an oven mitt, picks up the tray, and slams it hard against the edge of the nearest garbage bin, sending the blackened rolls tumbling in. The clang of it is so loud that for a second it echoes through the empty kitchen, and Haruka doesn’t know if it’s the sound or the reminder of how late it is that sobers him up.

Sousuke’s expression doesn’t show a trace of offense, but he does look surprised, if not a bit impressed. “What did those rolls ever do to you?”

Still feeling guilty from his moment of clarity—Sousuke had agreed, under no obligation, to stay late tonight so that Haruka could teach him to bake properly—Haruka frowns, tossing the oven mitt back onto one of the steel countertops.

“That's enough,” he says, which is as good of an apology as Sousuke’s going to get. And in this unspoken agreement they’ve had, the awareness of how pointless hating each other is—in what they can likely call a friendship—Sousuke undoubtedly knows it.

And there’s a grunt, and with it comes relief. He tips his gaze over to the bowl across the way, the one that holds what remains of the dough they’d rolled out together. “Again, then?”

Haruka’s nod is shallow. “Again.”

The hour goes by. The rolls don’t turn out perfect but they’re better than before, and the walk home isn’t perfect, either,

(because the streets of Tokyo aren’t nearly ever as quiet as the streets of Iwatobi were, there’s always someone yelling somewhere, always some distant music playing, always cars passing by and traffic lights flashing)

but it isn’t entirely lonely, and neither was the night; even if he had been out of it, even if he had been functioning mechanically, even if he had been trying to dull the ache in his chest. Because he doesn’t think it’s fair at all that his gut feeling has started to change, that he’s started to doubt what he was so sure he was going to do. And the worst of it, the part that sends his tranquility shattering, is that he knows that it’s probably only a side-effect of being too scared to say anything while Rin was still here, a kind of remedy of his own mind telling him that maybe it was for the best—maybe he’s not supposed to break up with Rin, after all.

Maybe things will get better on their own.

But it also wouldn’t be fair for him to miss Rin this much if he wasn’t feeling that way. It wouldn’t be fair at all to feel like Rin is physically missing from him, to ache this much for him, if he only wanted Rin gone.

In his back pocket, his phone comes to life. More than anything else it startles him because he thought he’d turned it off, so his only intention in fishing it out is to clear the notification away. But the text is short enough for him to see the entirety of it in the preview on the screen; on accident, he reads it.

_Yamazaki: gou wants to know if you’re okay_

He considers responding, for just a moment and for Gou’s sake more than anything, and then considers nothing other than sliding it back into his pocket. Then the phone buzzes again, and a new notification slides into view—one he actually has to unlock his phone to see the entirety of.

_i mean i want to know too. didnt wanna ask you earlier. was afraid you’d treat me like you treated that tray of rolls_

The snort hits him fast, and a couple holding hands and walking past look at him oddly. He types, _I might have._

_glad i took precautions, then_

_are you going to answer the question?_

In the end, being friendly with Sousuke is a lot more rewarding than being his rival ever was, or probably ever could have been—Haruka isn’t sure what broke the mold, or what caused them to fall into the pattern of friendly teasing as opposed to distant sneers, but it hadn’t happened long after high school. And Haruka’s grateful. It was starting to show in Rin’s expression, how much it was getting to him that his two best friends were perpetually cold to one another.

(Best friends, then—best friends and a lover, later. Haruka had somehow become lucky enough to be cast in both roles, and now the thought of it curls something sour in his stomach.)

He sends, _I'm fine._

Rewarding in the long run, yes. But there are also moments like this, where Haruka wonders if there was still animosity between them, Sousuke wouldn’t stick his nose so deep into his life.

(Or maybe he’d stick his nose in even more, like he wasn’t afraid to when they were twelve or when they were seventeen, under a sunset outside of the school those years ago, and Haruka doesn’t entirely care to find out.)

_sure_

Nothing comes after it, even when Haruka waits five, ten minutes. He gets through the door of his apartment and into his night clothes, and still nothing comes. And he wonders if Gou is truly satisfied enough to let Sousuke let it go, and then wonders if Gou had actually been the one to prompt the question at all.

It sounds like something she’d do, after all. Especially through Sousuke, because although she’s never shown any signs of being shy when she’s had something she’s wanted to demand from someone, it does mean she can smile sweetly at Haruka the next time they meet and do it truly. Which is both intimidating and amusing to Haruka, because it’s just as well that she’d end up with someone she can bend whichever way she wants, and it’s just as well that it would be Sousuke, who might be one of the most stubborn people he’s ever met, with exception to Gou.

But Gou also wouldn’t let it go this easily—Haruka can picture it clearly, her leaning over Sousuke’s shoulder, analyzing every message, telling him word-for-word what to say and whining when he switches the wording around to his own liking. The conversation here feels very much like Sousuke’s alone, and Haruka doesn’t know if that makes him feel more or less scrutinized.

Maybe it’s neither. His own paranoia wouldn’t surprise him at this point. It’s been too common of a factor in his life, as of late.

He sets his phone down without responding, and settles down onto an empty bed. It’s felt bigger than usual for the last week, ever since collapsing into it after coming back from the airport, but the stiffness in his bones tonight makes it feel softer—if Rin were here, he’d nag Haruka endlessly about taking better care of himself.

If Rin were here.

Well—he’s been trying not to think of the fact that he isn’t, and here he slips his arms underneath a pillow, tips the side of his face deeper into it, feels the void in his chest grow a little bit larger.

Missing Rin has always been disappearing into that void—he thinks that maybe that’s why it’s been so easy in the past to pretend like there’s nothing wrong. Because he’s allowed himself to so heavily slip into the awareness of Rin’s absence that thoughts of what they used to be muffle into background noise.

(But missing Rin never used to hurt this much, either.)

That might even be the worst thing now, if he thinks about it. That when Rin’s gone, Haruka’s too busy _thinking_ about him being gone to think about what he knows he should be—fixing this, or himself, or whatever he’s begun to think is wrong.

Or to figure out what it is that’s wrong in the first place. And Rin isn’t here for him to touch or to hold or to try and talk to, and he knows this isn’t ever something he’d be brave or cruel enough to talk about over the phone or during a Skype call, where the distance adds some kind of safety net, where he can say what he needs to and if things blow up turn the situation around into something like _we’re upset, we’re not ourselves when we’re apart, we’ll talk about this later._

Not a chance. This isn’t something he can scatter.

And there’s so much else he needs to say with it. Not just _this might not be working out_ but also _I’m sorry_ , and over and over: _this doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I do._

_(I do, I do, I do.)_

He hates, so much, even more than he is grateful, that he couldn’t find the courage to say anything while Rin was still here. He had come so far so many times, had felt the dread and adrenaline bubble up and come so close to the air but die out on his tongue, leaving an expectancy in the air that always set him on edge—did Rin ever feel that, too?

What is Rin feeling right now?

But he doesn’t really know if he wants the answer to that. If he were to go by the twist in his stomach and the weight in his chest, his best guess would be a no.

His phone lights up again, pointed towards the ceiling, vibrating in a pulse. He doesn’t reach for it; doesn’t even bother to try to glance at the screen while it’s still illuminated. He just stares until the light dies down, then stares into the dark. Then he closes his eyes and searches for sleep.

 

 

The water doesn’t haven’t any answers for him. At least not ones that he can pull into himself directly, but it does help ease the chorus of anxiety inside of him into a murmur. The world above always feels distant, like a blur to him, under the surface.

He’s come early enough to the swim club that he’s the only one in the water for now, but he knows that’ll change any minute now, when the first swim lessons of the day start and they have to close off part of the pool for it. Then the parents will start to swim, and so will community members, and the water will feel too crowded with too many people he doesn’t know for it to be wholly comfortable.

But the safety of it remains for now. He feels his pulse through the water, feels the water respond in a quiet rush. Uninterrupted, it’s nice here. Privately intimate, in a way competition never seemed to be.

Something muddled, something like a voice, reaches his ears under the very surface where he’s been floating—he opens his eyes to the light coming in through the windows and to the direction of the noise.

The voice comes again, with a body this time. “Nanase-san?”

“Mana,” he says, because there she is—she’s cut her hair, he thinks, as it hangs dark and cut straight at her shoulders. He hasn’t seen her at the restaurant all week, since she’s been away visiting her father.

Her eyes draw up into something delighted. “I didn’t know you swam here.” And here he notices her swimsuit, a competitive one, and the cap and goggles she’s got tucked up into the hip of it. “But I never used to come this early, either. Do you mind if I join you?”

It’s still early, so he’s the only one in the pool still—but there are a few people coming in and out of the dressing rooms, slipping on their children's floaties or flippers for their swim lessons, and the lifeguard has come to take her post. Someone was going to come into the pool eventually, anyway, so he shrugs.

“I won’t stop you from swimming.”

She’s good, it turns out. She seems to favor swimming breaststroke because it’s the majority of what she does, back and forth in the lane next to Haruka’s, or maybe she just wants to get better at it. Whichever it is, she swims it as long as Haruka swims and even past that, past when he has to switch lanes because they have to clear out half of the pool for lessons.

“You can share this lane with me,” she ends up offering, so he does. Others swim in the remaining lanes but mostly the poolside is filled with parents waiting for their kids’ lesson to be over, and Haruka’s reminded of why he wanted to hire Mana in the first place. She’s straightforward but quiet, and shy but not entirely insecure—her smiles are bright. She almost reminds him of Nagisa, if Nagisa were inverted and introverted.

And sane.

“How is your father doing?” he asks when they’re out of the pool, only half because he feels like he should. The other half is a mixed combination of curiosity and some rueful feeling associated with asking in the first place; they really hardly even know each other.

But her smile is easy, if sad. “Better. He’s not in so much pain, now. But we don’t think it's going to be much longer now.” Her eyes stay on the water. Haruka wonders if it provides the same sort of comfort for her as it does him. “They moved him to hospice care.”

“I’m sorry.”

Mana pulls her towel a little tighter around herself. “It’s alright,” she says. “Thank you for letting me take the time off to spend time with him.”

Haruka looks away, feeling awkward. When she had asked for the days off Haruka had tried to think back to the time where he’d felt his grandmother begin to slip, and the memory of it had caused his stomach to tighten up, so he’d repressed it and given her the okay without thinking too hard about it, or even asking Sousuke.

He scrubs the towel that’s on top of his head into his hair, then lets it fall. “Don’t worry about it.”

The pain of missing someone is something he’s closely familiar with, anyway. Not just now, but for a long while. His parents first, then his grandmother, then his parents again—then Rin. Then Rin had come back, new and dark and scowling, and Haruka found that he was missing him more. That he was missing the boy he’d met when he was young, who smiled too big and laughed too loud and made promises too great but fulfilled them, anyway. Then that boy had come back, and Haruka found he loved him regardless.

And now, there’s this. He wonders if he’s really missing Rin so much as he’s missing the feeling they used to create together.

“How have you been doing?” Mana’s voice cuts through his thoughts, pulls his gaze back to her. He wonders if she said something else and he’d missed it, because the question seems out of the blue. But she’s smiling that Nagisa smile, and he just as quickly feels slightly weakened by it; he wonders vaguely if the two really would would get along.

“Fine,” he says. She looks so expectant, and he feels sort of stupid. Of course she’d get along with Nagisa. More than likely, he’d be all over her.

“Talkative as always, Nanase-san.”

He’s just as unimpressed as she is. “I talk when I have things to talk about.”

Mana laughs. “Well, I appreciate how blunt you are.”

Haruka thinks that she’s one of the first, but bites down on saying it. Instead he asks, “Will you be back at work this week?”

“Oh, definitely. Not to be mean, I know he tries, but I don’t think Kazaya’s going to last very long without me.”

Haruka smiles. “He already hasn’t lasted.”

She drops her chin into her hands and softly groans. She’s looking out at the water, so Haruka looks, too, sees the children cutting awkwardly through the water, and eventually his smile slackens away.

 

 

After work, he takes the long way home. It's not that he needs the exercise so much as it is he needs sleep, so he figures he could do with wearing himself out a bit. And it works—by the time he hits the corner convenience store just half a mile away from the apartment complex, his feet ache and his hands shake under the weight of his umbrella. He steps over a puddle, and nearly passes the door of the shop before it catches his eye.

It must nearly be closing, or maybe the store hasn't been getting as much business as usual today—whatever the reason, the cashier inside stares at him as long as he stares at the rack of magazines, barely shielded by the thin metal top of it curved over above. He thinks on leaving; but for this, tonight, he didn't bring any kind of shield. 

The store is a humid kind of warm when he walks in, magazine in hand. Through the entirety of setting it down on the counter and paying for it, he doesn't meet the cashier's eyes, and doesn't say a word.

When he finally gets home, it’s late. His phone lies abandoned with a low battery on his nightstand, where he hadn’t bothered to take it, and the top corner blinks with a notification. He has an idea of what it might be before he even checks, but his pulse nonetheless picks up when he sees Rin's name on the screen.

It's a text, and he's caught between hesitance in reading it and relief that it isn't a missed call, or something with just as much finality to it. He hasn't picked up the phone—he's just kind of tapped the screen where it lays to wake it up, and here he leaves it, opting to take a shower first before he opens it.

_i swear the restaurant i went to tonight had a mackerel burger. seriously. a burger made of mackerel. i don’t know who the fuck’s been ordering it, but it’s oddly comforting to know there are people as crazy as you out there._

And then, a follow up, sent just two minutes later:

 _thinking about you. miss you_.

Hair dripping wetly onto his shoulders, the weight that’s normally in his chest shifts to his stomach. Somehow he feels top heavy; he tips over, leaning sideways onto the headboard. The pillows sink miserably below him.

There's guilt here, but he's pretty sure the curling feeling that's at his fists now, too, is closer to frustration than anything. It isn't the angry kind—the kind that would be easy to deal with—but the kind that comes with desperation. He wants so bad to look down at the text he's seeing and feel warm. And feel like smiling.

But the words are there and Rin's sent them, and all it does is make him ache.

 

 

Two weeks later, on a Saturday, Haruka stands in his kitchen past sundown, and Rin's voice is warm through the receiver of his phone.

"Okay, fine, there are worse things to eat regularly than fucking fish. I'll give you that. But you have at least been eating more than mackerel, right?"

His right shoulder is starting to get sore, so Haruka puts his spatula down to move the phone to the other shoulder, balancing it now between it and his left ear. He picks the spatula back up, turns his filet over, and says, "Yes."

And before Rin can say anything else, which he's undoubtedly opening his mouth to do, Haruka adds, "Gou wouldn't let me go a week without checking to make sure, Rin."

He knows it's something Rin can't argue with, and argue he doesn't. The static crackles with the weight of a sigh. "Has she been bothering you a lot?"

"She doesn't bother me," Haruka says. 

"And Sousuke?"

He doesn't miss a beat. "He exists solely to bother me."

A snort. "I'm sure hearing that would warm his heart." 

And Haruka has to suppress his own bout of huffed laughter at that, because the truth is that that's probably been Sousuke's goal from the beginning. It's only well-intended now, and it probably would work smugness onto his expression if he heard Haruka admit it to his face.

"Have you called him?" Haruka asks, and then, when Rin doesn't answer right away, "You should. Gou, too."

"Yeah, yeah." There's a rustling of sheets; Haruka can see it, Rin rolling over, burying half of his face into the pillows. "You sound like my mother."

"And I'm sure you don't talk to her that much, either," Haruka prods, smiles. Rin's silence is all the confirmation he needs to know that he's grimacing. "You have no problem calling me all the time."

"You're different," Rin says, without hesitation. "Obviously."

Haruka hums. Slides the filet onto a plate. Turns the burner off. "Obviously."

"I miss you," Rin says, maybe because he's trying to change the subject, but his voice is true and it works, anyway. Haruka takes the phone in his hand and clutches it. "Like crazy, all the time."

A pang hits Haruka deep within. It echoes through the emptiness there, up into his throat. He carries his plate into the living room and sits.

"Me too." He pulls his legs up onto the couch, crosses them. It all feels so routine.

"Next time—I mean, not this one, but the time after, I swear, I'll stay for a while. Longer, I mean. Shit, it's gonna suck only being able to stay for a week this time."

"At least we get to see each other, though."

"Yeah. Yeah, I know. At least we get that."

Haruka stares at his lap, where his free hand fidgets. He wonders what Rin's expression is like right now. What the pattern of his breathing is and how it lines up with his pulse. What it all would feel like, under his fingertips. He considers, for a moment, saying this out loud; telling Rin how badly he wishes he could touch him right now, watch him swallow, feel him breathe, look into his eyes and feel at home. But even thinking this feels underwhelming in comparison to actually doing it, and how he remembers it always feeling, so putting it into actual words seems out of the question. He's never been good at them, anyway.

Through the receiver, Rin yawns. Despite himself, affection takes hold of Haruka.

"Are you tired?"

"Mm. Just a little. I was up early."

"You should sleep."

"Nope," Rin says, and he sounds perfectly happy in his refusal, even as he yawns through it. This time, somehow, Haruka catches it. "No way. Wanna talk to you."

"We've talked. For almost two hours now."

"S'not enough."

He says it innocently enough, and he doesn't say anything more, but Haruka still hears what's between the lines. Maybe because he feels it, too. 

 _Nothing is ever enough, now_.

(Or maybe he feels it all on his own.)

"You'll just fall asleep talking to me again."

Rin's voice is insistent. "Yeah, well, maybe I like falling asleep that way. You've got a nice voice." 

"Okay," Haruka says. "Then go to sleep, and I'll talk to you."

For several moments, Rin is silent. Then he asks, "Seriously?"

"Yeah." It's pointless for heat to rise to his cheeks, and yet. "You really should sleep."

The stars are in the smile Haruka can't see, and it's as close to torture as he's ever known. "What a romantic. Alright, gimme a second."

He must put the phone down, because there's a few more seconds of rustling and then silence. Then a steady shuffle in the background that can't be anything other than Rin changing into his pajamas. Haruka listens, thinking that this is all very domestic, and all very bittersweet. Rin is existing somewhere, living somewhere, going through the daily routines Haruka's memorized somewhere, without him. 

There's a click and a rush, and then Rin's voice is back. "I can't believe you're volunteering to talk, unprompted. Honestly, Haru. Can you even think of things to say on your own?"

He almost sounds giddy, and it pumps a similar feeling into Haruka, as well. Alone, he can smile freely, so he does. His chest is mostly, blissfully numb, and slightly fluttery.

"On occasion." Rin's laugh is muffled by something. "Are you closing your eyes?"

"Yes."

"Can I believe you?"

 _"Yes_. Haru, come on."

"Okay," he says, softly. He lets his smile gently fade, leans into the small nook between the back of the couch and the armrest. When he can hear Rin's breathing even out and slow, he speaks. "The neighbors started fighting again. I thought they were fine, for a while, since I stopped hearing them, but they started up again about little things. I think he got a snake without her permission last night, but pets aren't even allowed in this complex. Then tonight, she was yelling because she doesn't want to go to see his family."

The television sways light against the shadows in the room. He leans his head back against the couch, listening for something that isn't silence. "I've never heard anyone fight so much. Even if they really hate each other, I don't know how they have the energy for that kind of thing all the time." There's a noise, like Rin's humming, but it quiets too quickly for Haruka to pinpoint. "Things like that keep happening, whether you're here or not. Loud things, that we've gotten used to. But it feels different when you're not here. Quieter."

He waits, because the words have come without his entire permission. Obediently—impressively—Rin says nothing.

"Not ... it isn't because I'm lonely," he continues, slowly. "No one gives me the chance to feel that. I think it's just that things change when you're not here. Swimming isn't as nice. Sleeping isn't as nice. Eating is better, though."

There's a huff of air. A laugh.

"I miss you," he says. His heart hammers into his ribcage, and he all of a sudden wants to talk about anything else. Truthfully he's been getting better at doing this; telling Rin how he feels, but to do it now feels **—** "Oh. I forgot to tell you, but Makoto will probably be here, when you come back. He said he wanted to visit before he left for his trip, but he was busy."

—wrong. Uncalled for. Even if, and especially if, Rin doesn't know why that would be.

He eyes the room around him, trying to search for something to talk about, as if a topic could just appear from thin air. And for a while he talks of anything; of dinner at Sousuke and Gou's apartment, of the internship Gou can't stop talking about since she'd gotten it, and how Sousuke had somehow been more proud of her than she was. He knew. He witnessed it, firsthand. He talks of the weather, and the annoying weatherman Rin likes to make fun of, which for some reason reminds him of the food truck Rin likes so much and how it's back to parking just down the road and so he talks of that, too.

By now, Rin's breathing has evened out so much it's nearly silent. Knowing he must be asleep or close to it, Haruka turns so he's laying vertically on the couch, with his legs outstretched, and his eye catches the folding glossy edges of something hidden in the shelf of the coffee table.

He breathes, remembers a rainy walk back home under the shield of an umbrella, and the ache in his feet while stepping over a puddle. 

"I saw your picture on a magazine, in a convenience store." The words sound like they're shamefully clinging to his teeth. What he almost says, what he doesn't, is that he looked at it for too long to not buy it. "I bought it. I know we stopped doing that a while ago. There are still some interviews framed somewhere in the closet." He pauses; Rin is still blissfully silent. "Maybe we should take them out again."

He'd only put them away in the first place when he was angry. It's not a day, or week, or month he likes to look back on, but it seems pointless to keep something they both used to be proud of away in a dark space somewhere, collecting dust. Maybe.

Is Rin still awake? He doesn't want to ask, at least not too loudly, afraid he'll rouse Rin if he isn't. Instead he holds the phone a little tighter and wishes Rin were here, not for any other reason than to look at him and be able to tell if he's really asleep or if he's faking. He's done it before, as a way to trick Haruka into doing something like trying to sleep, himself, so that Rin can eventually rouse him by pinning him down onto the mattress, preceding something like kisses left over his skin or some God-awful tickle attack. But there's no reason for Rin to pretend here, when he isn't around for Haruka to see his mouth twitch, or count his breaths, or to press his fingertips into Haruka's skin and make him disintegrate.

"It's a good picture," is what he says. "But I haven't read the interview. I don't think you'd want me to, anyway."

After all **—**

(but would he? would he want haruka to? is he hopeful after interviews that haruka would see his picture on some stand somewhere and be unable to leave until he folded through the pages enough to lay his credit card down? does he even think of haruka, doing these things?)

 **—** Rin's always been the one to get embarrassed about publicity.

As opposed to Haruka, who was continuously indifferent to the cameras and the questions because he had no reason to be embarrassed by anything, no reason to let the world into his life or kick it out, either. He'd willingly stepped into the public eye, and he'd always known what that had meant; head down, mouth shut. No touching the person he loved in public.

(To be entirely fair: Rin had hated that last rule, too.)

They'd behaved, while it lasted. Then Haruka had left and Rin, wide-eyed and still yet to be satisfied, had stayed. Haruka's handful of medals hang up in their bedroom, on the wall across from the dresser, but as far as he's concerned, the empty bed at night is all he's got to show for his career in the competitive circuit.

"Rin," he says, softly. "Are you awake?"

Silence. No answer for five seconds, then ten, then thirty. And none after that, either. Just the sure-steady sound of Rin's breathing, almost imperceptible through the line. 

_(rin has no reason to pretend)_

Haruka sits up finally, runs a hand through his hair. Feeling tired himself, he says, "Goodnight, Rin."

_(does he?)_

He hangs up the phone without even attempting to wait for any kind of response. His dinner has long gone cold now, but he brings the plate to his lap and starts to eat, anyway. 

And if the curling pages catch his eye again—if he reaches for them, thumbs at them, eventually opens them to the directed page—Rin doesn't have to know.

(He probably wouldn't want to, anyway.)

 

 

The third time he has dinner at Sousuke and Gou's within two months, it's the last time before Rin's supposed to come home. Because he gets there early, Gou shoves a cutting board into his arms and sets him to work on the vegetables.

"It's rude to show up before the hostess has finished cooking, Haruka," she scolds, tapping him on the forehead not-so-gently with a wooden spoon. He attempts to remedy it by sending her an apologetic frown, but all it does is make her groan louder. He cuts the vegetables quickly as compensation, and when he dumps them all onto a hot pan, her smile is finally pleased.

It takes both of them to fend Sousuke off from interfering with the cooking, which Haruka does more out of amusement than anything—including Gou, who clearly does it out of fear for their kitchen. 

"I set one oven mitt on fire," Sousuke laments, while Haruka bustles around him with the pan of stir-fry, "and suddenly I can't step foot in my own kitchen."

Haruka looks at him with as blank of a look as he can muster and asks, "Was it a nice oven mitt?" And Gou laughs so loudly she nearly drops the pot of rice she's holding.

The thought that this is the second closest thing he's ever gotten to real family isn't a realization because it isn't a new thought, but he thinks it every time, regardless. Sousuke and Gou aren't the Tachibanas and the Tachibanas weren't his grandmother, but he's taken it all in stride and he's never thought of any of them as replacements. They talk and cook and eat like a family, as they always do, and all the more Gou drags Haruka to the living room for a movie afterwards, leaving Sousuke to clean up from dinner alone.

"Have you been talking to my brother?" she asks, not as soon as they sit down, but Haruka could tell she's wanted to for longer.

"Sure."

"How is he?"

Haruka shrugs. "He's fine. He's just been training a lot. He hasn't really had the time to do anything exciting."

She pouts, and as if Haruka can do anything about it, says, "He never calls us."

"I've told him to. He gets embarrassed." 

Or at least that's what Haruka's chalked it up to, since it clearly isn't the first time Rin's cut himself off from his friends and family while off and away, but this time he doesn't have the tragedy of hitting a wall to blame it all on. Just the pressure of training hard and doing well, and the anxiety of friends and family watching his every move that he's so eager to maneuver around. In the end, Haruka can't ever blame him.

Gou huffs, though, and stretches out her legs so that her toes curl around the edge of the ottoman. "That's ridiculous."

"So is he," Haruka says. 

Gou smiles. "But the difference is that you like it," she points out.

The flush comes fast and hot. Still, he doesn't deny it, and in the end this is probably what makes Gou's smile even wider. 

"I'll go help Sousuke with the dishes," he says. Her giddy expression falls and she makes some complaint about the movie being about to start, but he knows that she was going to pause it until Sousuke was done, anyway. She always does.

Sousuke's halfway through the dishes already when Haruka comes to the kitchen, and he hardly says a word when Haruka steps in to help, packing away the leftovers first and then helping to wash the last two pots.

"So," Sousuke begins, once the dishes are set aside to dry. Something about his tone makes Haruka's shoulders stiffen. "You've been talking to Rin?"

This again. He doesn't want this again. "Yeah."

"A lot?"

It's a simple question, but Haruka feels the crack of egg shells beneath him when he says, "Whenever he has the time."

He thinks back to all those weeks ago, when Rin was here and Sousuke had drilled right into Haruka's thoughts at the restaurant. To wishing that he and Rin were fighting, after all, just because it would be easier to deal with. He still kind of feels that way now, but the rest of it—

Sousuke crosses his arms over his chest; the parts of his hands that are still wet leave streaks on the fabric of his shirt. "And nothing's going on."

—the rest of it, he'd been doing so well at repressing.

He echoes what he wonders. "This again."

"You said you and Rin didn't have a fight," Sousuke says. "I said I believed you."

"Do you?"

"I don't have a reason not to." His eyes flick to the door of the kitchen, and Haruka likely wonders the same thing as him; how much of this Gou is hearing, if any of it. "Like I said, I'm wondering. It's not like Rin calls to keep us updated on anything."

Haruka wonders if Sousuke makes a habit of staying updated with all of his friends' relationships, but decides not to voice it. "No. Nothing's going on."

"Is there another reason you mope around at the restaurant all day, then?" Sousuke's voice is the kind of harsh it always is, but it's the level of something like sympathy that causes defense to creep up the length of Haruka's spine.

He can't help the scowl, no matter how much of it he tempers. "I miss him. Did you think of that?"

Sousuke's mouth opens, closes. He tips his eyes to the side, like he's thinking very hard. And Haruka thinks that every day he turns this situation over in his head he digs his own hole deeper, but that it feels like this is the first time he's done it while talking about it out loud. 

"I did," Sousuke replies, finally. His eyes are still downturned. "Sorry."

There's finality in his voice, and in the way he brings his eyes back up. But the weight in Haruka's chest has indefinitely returned, and for that he's irritated. He picks at the fabric of a towel, then pushes it aside. 

"Gou's waiting," he says, and doesn't wait for Sousuke to press himself away from the counter before heading for the door.

He doesn't remember the steps he takes to get to the couch, nor does he remember Sousuke following or Gou opening up the spot on the couch for him to sit down, but nevertheless this is where he finds himself, and then Gou's draping a blanket over his lap and pressing play. Next to her, Sousuke's arm goes to her waist.

The opening credits appear, and Haruka thinks,  _it's obvious._

He wonders where it all went, his talent to keep things so effectively bottled up inside, enough so that nobody knew that something was wrong unless he talked about it, or in the rare case that someone else did; even Makoto would sometimes be blind to the things he kept locked away. Where did that armor start to crack? 

Was it before or after he fell in love? Was there correlation there, in the first place?

Sunken into the middle of the couch, Gou yawns. Sousuke mutters something that Haruka can't hear, and probably doesn't want to, anyway; he wonders what Rin would do, if he were here. He's grown too mature, miraculously, to do something like sit directly in between the two of them, but no doubt he'd be sending some warning glances Sousuke's way. His "no being gross with my sister while I'm around" rule is something that has had yet to fade, though Haruka's begun to think that's it just his way of holding onto something childish he doesn't want to lose.

Dangerously, he wonders:  _is that what I'm doing now?_

He tenses; on the television screen, the music thrums sadly around a woman at a table. She cries.

_(am i holding onto something that's already gone?)_

He's still throughout the entirety of the movie, mind and limbs numb, and so it's over much more quickly than he would have expected. His perception of time nowadays can't really ever seem to catch a mean. He's already folding the blanket from his lap when Sousuke reaches for the remote to turn the television off, but Gou asks for him to let the credit music play a little bit longer; and so Haruka goes to slip his shoes on at the door to the sound of a piano in the background.

Sousuke sees him there, leaving Gou in the living room after her tired wave goodbye, and so at the other end of the apartment Haruka puts his coat on and Sousuke brings the leftovers for him to take. When the container is weighing his hands down, Sousuke says, "Tell Rin that Gou's going to skin him alive if he doesn't call her soon, alright?"

"If he calls me before he comes back," Haruka says.

Sousuke anchors his acceptance with a nod. "Goodnight, Haruka."

"Goodnight."

It catches him at the door; the dangerous feeling from earlier. Only now it's louder, and thicker with dread, and he doesn't have to think about how stupid he is and is going to be because he's too busy thinking about Sousuke's concern and his sympathy and his own missing armor and Rin's absence, and then Sousuke's name leaves his mouth in a voice that's somehow even more startled than he feels.

From where Sousuke has begun to walk away, he turns. Haruka has one hand on the doorknob and considers walking out the door and leaving anyway.

Instead, he asks, quietly, "How do you know if you should break up with someone?"

Panic colors him from the inside out; and he knows, as if he's outside of his own body, that the shock in Sousuke's expression must mirror his own. But then Sousuke is fortunate enough for his to fade away. His expression goes strictly solemn, pinning Haruka's stomach to the floor. 

"I'm not exactly an expert in the area," Sousuke says, slowly, like he’s rolling the words around in his mind even now, as he says them. "But probably when you start wondering if it's time to break up."

And with that, he leaves Haruka at the door.

 

 

It was bound to come back around at some point, and Haruka knew it. But that doesn't make the guilt any thinner, and it doesn't stop the dreams. He keeps having them, and his mind keeps racing to thoughts of saying goodbye to Rin in a way he never has before. He's more sure than he has been, now, that he has to do it.

(Though admittedly, that isn't very sure at all.)

At the very least, he knows he has to talk to Rin about this. Even if there was another way to go about it, he doesn't think he'd take it. They're both so short-tempered, so defensive, so competitive; they've had disagreements and fights and gotten angrier at each other than anything, but they've never lied, and they've never kept things from each other. And if it's going to end, Haruka wants it to end while they're still doing at least one thing right.

Footsteps come tumbling into the kitchen quickly, and Haruka thanks the instincts that allow him to set the knife he's holding down carefully before the weight of another body slams into his back—he loses his breath, just momentarily.

"Nagisa—"

"Haru-chan, even when you're not working you're _working_ ," Nagisa scolds, into and over his shoulder.

Haruka doesn't squirm in his grasp, though he wants to; he just calmly presses Nagisa's insistent arms away from him. "I'm making dinner."

"Which is what you do at _work_. Let's order delivery. Mako-chan said he brought a video game from his trip!"

"It's just a platformer game," Makoto says, when Nagisa's wrestled Haruka into the living room. "We have them here, too."

But Nagisa's excitement can never be quelled so easily, so they end up playing the American game after all. Haruka sits on the couch with Makoto beside him, while Nagisa sits on the ground between their legs, controller in hand.

"How was America?" Haruka finally asks, for the first time since Makoto tumbled in with a duffel bag this morning, after he denies Nagisa's offer of the controller for the third time. 

Makoto smiles, looking elated at the opportunity to talk about it. "Really great. The city was beautiful." 

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. And the kids there were so ambitious! Not that the kids I work with here ever aren't, but it was nice to see that some things don't change no matter where you go."

It's been four months, that he's been away in America; but Haruka's been used to not seeing Makoto for long periods of time since the end of high school and even now, living on opposite ends of Tokyo. It's nice, though, to at least have the security of Makoto only being a train ride away, or to at least only separated by a phone call that isn't long-distance. 

"There was a girl in one of my classes that reminded me a lot of you," Makoto says, still beaming. And Haruka breathes. Sitting here, watching Makoto talk happily and Nagisa glow below them makes him feel just a little bit better. A little less alone. "She doesn't talk much, but whenever she does it's about the ocean. But her parents are both oceanographers, so it isn't really surprising."

"What was her name?"

"Keenan," Makoto says. "Though I guess it's usually a boy's name. Coincidences, right?"

Haruka forgoes a response to that in favor of saying, "I don't only talk about the ocean."

Makoto laughs, but doesn't protest. It leaves a nice feeling hanging over the room, and later, long after Haruka's had the second controller and learned how to double-jump cleanly over the obstacles and the food has arrived, filling the table in Haruka's living room nearly over the edge, the feeling remains. Haruka allows himself a singular moment to think that he's lucky, because most people he knows wouldn't be nearly enough to flood his mind clean, especially not with the promise of Rin's return

_(tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow)_

looming so near over his head; but Makoto and Nagisa together are nearly overwhelming (and would be past that, likely, if Rei were here to add to the madness of it all). The good kind—the full kind. Not the empty kind he's gotten so used to. 

The thing about overwhelming people, though, is that they tend to wear themselves out after a while. And so Makoto, who's much closer to mellow than Nagisa could ever have the potential of being, is left with Haruka to clean the living room up and package the rest of the food while Nagisa sleeps soundly on the couch, head tucked into the corner of it where he'd passed out somewhere in between Makoto's turn with the controller and the movie they'd all agreed on watching. They're pointlessly quiet in the kitchen, knowing a monsoon and a half wouldn't wake Nagisa up; and across the counter, Makoto stretches both arms over his head and yawns.

"Sorry I didn't warn you about bringing Nagisa along," he says. "He just kind of ran into me—literally—and I didn't really have a choice in the matter."

Haruka shrugs, and Makoto's expression doesn't change. "I don't mind," he says, even though it's what they both know.

"I know. But still. It's a little like bringing fireworks instead of sparklers," Makoto says gravely, and Haruka's mouth quirks into a wry smile.

"He is a lot."

"He's so _much_." Makoto smiles to match. "Have you heard anything from Rei?"

"Not anything that isn't through Nagisa."

"Ah. I wonder how he's doing."

"Hm." Truthfully, Haruka's been wondering, too. It's odd to think of how scattered they've all become after high school; Makoto mostly here, but traveling all over to learn; Nagisa always being busy working, studying, which wasn't something Haruka had ever thought to foresee; Rei going off to college in London; Rin wherever swimming takes him. Gou and Sousuke staying nearest. Odd enough that he's taken to not thinking about it much, so whenever he does it's as if he has to remember everything all over again before he can question what they might be doing on their own. When they were altogether a unit, things were simpler, and went without saying. Nowadays everything has to be said.

"We could call him tomorrow," suggests Haruka, without really thinking it through first. "We have long-distance calling. Nagisa has his Skype."

The way Makoto tempers his surprise is probably so as not to offend Haruka; he smiles, brilliantly, looking pleased. 

"That's a great idea," he says. "There's an eight hour difference, so we'll have to call late. Maybe we can do it after Rin gets here."

Haruka swallows down the fast and obligatory lump that rises in his throat. "Yeah."

"How long was it this time?"

He asks it harmlessly. Haruka turns away and gets a glass from the cabinet. "Seven weeks."

"I don't know how you two keep doing it," Makoto responds, when Haruka's at the sink. "Being away from each other so much when you used to be attached at the hip ... I can't imagine what it's like."

 _We're fine_ would sound too much like a lie, so he says, "We get by."

"I know, and I wouldn't expect less from either of you. You're both too stubborn. But still, if I had to be away from someone I was in a relationship with so often, I think I'd just—"

Haruka's grip falters and, under the running tap, the glass slips from his fingers and crashes to the bottom of the sink. The sound takes hold of the room and then falls flat, and the glass doesn't break, but Makoto's stopped talking, and the following silence is anything but comfortable.

"Sorry," Haruka says, sitting the glass upright. The frustration, in the fact that this keeps happening, simmers at the edge of his voice. He rinses off the sides of the glass and then fills it.

"It's fine."

But Haruka's already finished his glass of water; the response is noticeably, awkwardly late. And it feels too late to remedy the conversation, also, so instead he changes the subject.

"Since Nagisa's on the couch, you can have the extra futon." The glass goes back into the sink, and Haruka's hands at his sides. "I'll roll it out for you."

"I can do it," Makoto offers, the smile back in his voice. "Don't worry about it. You should get some rest, Haru."

"I have to roll out my own, anyway."

"And you shouldn't have to roll out two."

He's already walking by as he says it, and Haruka doesn't really think he has the energy anywhere inside of him to keep arguing, anyway. Besides, at the very base of this, Makoto is Makoto—and here Haruka can bitterly pride himself on being able to read his best friend so well, and how clearly he must have had seen something akin to a storm working underneath Haruka's tapered responses and left it all alone. Left it to settle.

It's probably a good thing.

Haruka's phone is free of notifications when he gets around to checking it, after rolling out the second futon on the living room floor for himself. Nagisa is still fast asleep, Makoto looks close to it, and Haruka wishes he were. His phone says nothing, and Rin is coming back tomorrow, for a week. A week and a day, if it matters. 

_(probably when you start wondering)_

He lays down, tucks himself under the blanket, and closes his eyes. And for the first time in seven weeks, he falls asleep to the sound of breathing that isn't his own. 

_(if it's time to break up)_

 

 

Birds, he thinks, as he pulls his blanket tighter around himself. The birds are too loud.

He takes a waking breath in through his nose and tries to remember, in his state of being half-awake, if he'd opened a window before going to sleep. And as he shifts against the stiff floor of his living room, remembers where he is, wonders if Makoto had, instead, at some point in the night. He certainly feels the chill of morning wind; and something else, too, that isn't quite weighted but is definitely a presence, by his legs.

Somebody laughs, near him, quietly. Then, not seconds later, "Wake up, already."

It's right up close to him, so he flinches. The birds are still chirping, and he's hit with the childish urge to cover his ears up with his hands. Instead he slings an arm over his eyes, and the laughs comes again; then a hand, taking his and tugging it up into the air. He hardly has time to open his eyes up before there's a mouth against his knuckles, and now his eyes do startle open, wide. 

Warmth floods him, and for a euphoric few seconds everything inside of him is silenced. There's nothing but the quiet morning and the pale blues on the walls, and the shadows on Rin's face, under his hair, framing his smile.

"Hi," Haruka says.

It is inadequate, but Rin keeps smiling like it's what he had been hoping for. "Hi."

Haruka's throat feels sticky with disuse, but even through his mistrust of his own voice, he manages, "You weren't supposed to come back until tonight."

"I got an earlier flight," Rin says, quietly; Haruka realizes how dim the room still is, how early it must be. "Thought I'd surprise you, but it was a bitch with these two sleeping out here. I almost threw my fucking backpack right into Nagisa."

The image of that is probably only as funny to him as it is because he's still half-asleep, but he snorts even through knowing this. Rin hushes him, grinning, and then drops his head onto Haruka's shoulder. Rin's hair tickles the skin on his neck, and he squirms first, notices secondly.

"You cut your hair."

Rin tips his head up so that only his eyes come over Haruka's shoulder. "Yeah," he says. "Too short?"

"No." He wants to touch it, so he does, but only gently, at the edges. The ends are just past his ears now, layered along the back. "I like it."

Rin's hair is soft underneath his fingers, and his body is soft against Haruka's, and so are the blankets and the pillows, and it seems that the more aware he becomes of all of this the more Rin watches him. The more he grins. Eventually he digs his chin into Haruka's shoulder and murmurs, "Don't fall asleep on me."

"You can sleep with me."

"I just had, like, four cups of coffee on the way here. I'm not sleeping anytime soon." He nuzzles down, gently, into Haruka's shirt. "Come on."

"What?"

Rin's grinning mouth moves from Haruka's shoulder to his jawline, to the corner of his right eye. "Before they wake up. Let's go somewhere quick."

Haruka works very hard to channel all of his energy into the glare he sends Rin for that, and Rin just kisses his cheek, twice. 

"Not _far_ , or anything. Just, the sun isn't all the way up yet."

He wonders if Rin is doing this on purpose. Wonders if he's knowingly trying to bring back some of the spontaneity they had in the earlier stages of all of this, not just in loving each other but in being friends. But Rin has always had this quality, to do things like this on a whim and amaze Haruka like it's nothing, every day, always. Maybe he's just stopped appreciating them as much as he should.

Rin's hand is still holding his own, so he holds tighter. He forces himself to wake up completely, to focus on the solidity of Rin, on the sharpness of his smile. He's too tired to think clearly, even though he knows exactly what has to come. Over the blankets, he finds Rin's other hand and takes it.

This is one thing he never wants to lose.

"Okay," he says, and lets Rin pull him up, headfirst, into their week and a day.


End file.
